Wal-Mart to start selling iPhones on Sunday — CHICAGO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Friday it will start selling Apple Inc's iPhone on Sunday, but the popular cell phones that can surf the web will not be priced as low as some anticipated. — Wal-Mart plans to sell …

Walmart publicly confirms iPhone sales, $197 price — Rumors had been flying for months that retail juggernaut Walmart would be selling iPhones in its US stores. That rumor had all but been confirmed when leaked memos revealed that sales would begin on December 28.

Amazon.com's 14th Holiday Season Is Best Ever — Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced the 2008 holiday season finished as its best ever, with over 6.3 million items ordered worldwide on the peak day, Dec. 15, which is a record-breaking 72.9 items per second.

Top Technology Breakthroughs of 2008 — The economy may be tanking, but innovation is alive and well. — When it came to products, incremental improvements were the name of the game this year. Phones got faster (iPhone 3G anyone?), notebooks turned into netbooks and pocket cameras went …

RIM grabs the most absurd QWERTY keyboard patent — USPTO Patent Application 20080318617 should go down in the history of patents as the most absurd QWERTY keyboard. Okay, this is how it works — In the original position it looks like a normal alphanumeric keypad and then there are two hinges …

Apple files for swipe patent, augmenting iPhone keyboard — MacRumors has uncovered a nifty new patent application that discusses swipe gestures for touch-based, onscreen keyboards. The idea is that, instead of being limited to touches of specific keys, that the iPhone could detect a general swipe movement and interpret it.

Microsoft, Apple, Google sued over icon software patent — Cygnus Systems, Inc., a networking company based in Michigan, got into the holiday spirit by suing Microsoft, Apple, and Google for violating a patent it was recently awarded, which covers the navigation and access of files based on representational thumbnails.

The $99 iPhone lives! (Through AT&T, not Wal-Mart) — Some of you are likely upset that we now know for certain that Wal-Mart won't be selling the iPhone for $99, and instead will give it a measly $2 discount when it goes on sale on Sunday. So I'm happy to report today …

Why Googlers Call Friend Connect “FriendSense” — It's always fun to hear what Google employees call various projects when they think no one is listening. In 2007 they called the upstart Hulu joint venture Clown Co. as a private joke about the messy start to that unlikely company …

Voicetag Brings Voicemail To Facebook — For those of you who don't think voicemail is counterproductive, there is a new app on Facebook called Voicetag that lets you send voicemail messages to individuals or groups. This is not the first such app on Facebook (see Voicemail or TringMe) …

Bits Of Destruction — The news is full of stories this year end about the impending bankruptcies of retailers, newspapers, auto manufacturers, banks, and a host of other businesses that have been the mainstay of corporate america for the past 100 years or more.

How an old phone can make money — It is unlikely that the global recession has completely dampened people's enthusiasm for new gadgets this Christmas. — But for cash-strapped consumers with a shiny new mobile in their hands, there is a way of making money from their old, unwanted handsets.